NAME:  Ellen Ochoa (Ph.D.)
       NASA Astronaut
 
BIRTHPLACE AND DATE:  Born May 10, 1958 in Los Angeles, California,
but considers La Mesa, California to be her hometown.  Her mother,
Rosanne Ochoa, resides in La Mesa.
 
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:  Brown hair; blue eyes; 5 feet 5 inches; 108
pounds.
 
EDUCATION:  Graduated from Grossmont High School, La Mesa, California,
in 1975; received a bachelor of science degree in physics from San
Diego State University in 1980, a master of science degree and a
doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1981
and 1985, respectively.
 
MARITAL STATUS:  Married to Coe Fulmer Miles of Molalla, Oregon.  His
parents, Louis and Georgia Zak, reside in Waldport, Oregon.
 
RECREATIONAL INTERESTS:  Classical Flutist, and private pilot.  She
also enjoys volleyball and bicycling.
 
ORGANIZATIONS:  Member of the Optical Society of America (OSA), the
Society for Photo-0ptical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE), the
International Neural Network Society (INNS), Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma
Xi honor societies.
 
SPECIAL HONORS:  Valedictorian of San Diego State University in 1980.
Recipient of Stanford Engineering Fellowship (1980-81) and IBM
Predoctoral Fellowship (1982-84).  Student Soloist Award Winner,
Stanford Symphony Orchestra (1983).  Hispanic Engineer National
Achievement Award as Most Promising Engineer in Government (1989).
National Hispanic Quincentennial Commission Pride Award (1990).
 
EXPERIENCE:  In her doctoral dissertation Dr. Ochoa used
photorefractive crystals (a real-time holographic medium) in a
coherent four-wave mixing optical system to perform nonlinear
filtering of images.  Her work resulted in a patent for a system to
detect defects in periodic objects.  Graduating from Stanford in 1985,
she took a research staff position at Sandia National Laboratories in
Livermore, California.  While there, she worked on developing optical
methods for distortion-invariant object recognition and on optical
filters for noise removal.  Dr. Ochoa is a co-inventor on two
additional patents in these areas.  Dr. Ochoa joined NASA Ames
Research Center, Moffett Field, California, in 1988, to lead a
research group in optical processing, working primarily on optical
recognition systems for space automation.  Six months later, she was
selected as Chief of the Intelligent Systems Technology Branch, acting
as technical and administrative leader of 35 engineers and scientists
engaged in research and development of high performance computational
systems for aerospace missions.  In addition to holding patents, Dr.
Ochoa has presented numerous papers at technical conferences and in
scientific journals.
 
Selected by NASA in January 1990, Dr. Ochoa became an Astronaut in
July 1991.  She is qualified for assignment as a mission specialist on
future Space Shuttle flight crews.  Her technical assignments to date
include work on Space Shuttle flight software verification in the
Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL).
 
CURRENT ASSIGNMENT:  Dr. Ochoa is assigned as a mission specialist on
the crew of STS-56, carrying ATLAS-2.  During this nine-day mission
the crew of Endeavour will conduct atmospheric and solar studies in
order to better understand the effect of solar activity on the Earth's
climate and environment.  STS-56 is scheduled for launch in early
1993.
 
APRIL 1992